Introduction; Beatriz P?rez de las Heras.- PART I. Institutional mechanisms for citizen involvement and innovative instruments of participatory democracy: an attempt to promote an active citizenship and improve the legislative legitimacy of the EU.- Chapter 1. Institutional instruments for citizen involvement and participation: their impact on the EU's political processes and institutional legitimacy; Markus Thiel and Oana Petrescu.- Chapter 2. The European citizens' initiative as democratic legitimacy enhancing tool: towards a broader conceptualization; Karolina Boronska-Hryniewiecka and Elizabeth Monaghan.- Chapter 3. From legislative controllers to policy proponents: the evolving role of national parliaments in the EU multi-level governance; Karolina Boronska-Hryniewiecka.- Chapter 4. European civil society and 'participatory' governance tools: the impact of the EU fundamental rights agency & platform; Markus Thiel.- PART II. Legal formalization of fundamental rights in the EU: towards a more inclusive and politically responsible Europe?.- Chapter 5. The charter of fundamental rights as a new element of European identity and beyond; Beatriz P?rez de las Heras.- Chapter 6. The accession to the European convention on human rights: the EU integration in a legal and judicial system reserved to states; Oana Petrescu.- Chapter 7. Democratic legitimacy and the court of justice of the European union; Peter Gj rtler.- PART III. Supranational options to reinforce the political legitimacy of the EU; Chapter 8. The role of culture in the construction of European identity; Ma Luz Su?rez.- Chapter 9. New European economic governance versus European economic government: from market constitutionalism towards a more redistributive constitutionalism; Ainhoa Lasa.- Chapter 10. The transcendental construction of the social dimension of the European union: the challenges of the EU social model through and post crisis; Ainhoa Lasa and Jone Itxaro Elizondo.- Chapter 11. Constructing the European demos through external action? The case of consular assistance to EU citizens; Steffen Bay Rasmussen.- PART IV. Extending the European democratic model to other global and international actors: the EU as an embryo of cosmopolitan polity?.- Chapter 12. European neighbourhood policy: new models of external governance; Aurelia Dercaci.- Chapter 13. The EU as an international actor of peace and security; Antonio Manrique de Luna Barrios.- Chapter 14. The European asylum law, as a model for a more cosmopolitan international asylum law?; Pablo Antonio Fern?ndez.- Chapter 15. Democratizing international trade and investment agreements in the EU; Katerina Yiannibas.- Conclusions